An apparatus for controlling an opening-and-closing member for a vehicle is disclosed in JP2002-250163A. According to JP2002-250163A, after a vehicle door, serving as the opening-and-closing member, is switched to a half-closed state during a closing movement of the vehicle door, a motor unit is driven so as to pivot a movement gear, which has been in a neutral position, toward a door-fully-closing side, thereby holding the vehicle door in a fully-closed state (a close movement). Subsequently, the movement gear is returned to the neutral position. Further, after a signal for requesting an opening movement of the vehicle door is detected in response to an operation of a button and the like by a user, the motor unit is driven so as to pivot the movement gear, which has been in the neutral position, toward a door full-close releasing side, thereby releasing the holding of the vehicle door by means of the latch mechanism (a release movement). Subsequently, the movement gear is returned to the neutral position. Further, a state where the movement gear is in the neutral position is detected on the basis of a detection signal (switching of ON-OFF state) of a neutral switch.
When the state where the movement gear is in the neutral position is not detected, after the close movement, due to an abnormal performance of the neutral switch, a program shifts to an abnormal movement mode, and a stress relaxing movement is performed. Subsequently, the movement gear (the motor unit) is forcibly stopped and maintained to be in a non-driven state. The stress relaxing movement is performed in order to relax an excessive stress, which is generated relative to the latch mechanism and the like during the close movement. In the stress relaxing movement, the movement gear is normally stopped at a position closer to the door-fully-closing side, so that the holding of the vehicle door by means of the latch mechanism is not released.
However, according to JP2002-250163A, the movement gear is forcibly stopped, after the stress relaxing movement in response to the abnormal performance of the neutral switch. Therefore, after the abnormal performance, the release movement is not allowed to be performed in response to the detection of the signal for requesting the opening movement of the vehicle door. Accordingly, the opening movement of the vehicle door is not performed in response to the operation by the user, and the operation of the vehicle door may become less convenient.
On the other hand, in a case where the release movement is performed even after the stress relaxing movement in response to the abnormal performance of the neutral switch, in order to improve convenience, a positional error of the movement gear may be accumulated, and the accuracy of movement of the latch mechanism may be deteriorated.
A need thus exists for an apparatus for controlling an opening-and-closing member for a vehicle, which is not susceptible to the drawback mentioned above.